I don’t like golf. But I had to learn about it when I found myself working for Fox Sports News Asia in Singapore (excellent tagline: ‘Where sports goes BOOM!!!’). What I had to relearn was the art of editing video, because I was working shifts as a sports reporter. I was assigned an event (thank goodness not always golf), found the various bits of video and footage, and then glued them together complete with some form of commentary from me, and BOOM they went live. It was fun.
I’m now having to relearn that art of editing video once again, because I’m now well and truly stuck into my new YouTube channel, explaining how the Netherlands works by walking across it. Here’s the introduction to the Dutch videos:
Each of the ten walks that I covered in my book, ‘Orange Sky, Rising Water’, will be covered by four short videos. These will explain where I am, why it matters, and how it all helps to explain the Netherlands itself. Here’s the overall map from the book:
To take a couple of examples:
The second walk across beautiful Zeeland is about the extraordinary geography of the country, its vulnerability to extreme weather (as exemplified by the 1953 floods), the engineering response to this vulnerability (I’m walking over part of the awe-inspiring Delta Works), and finally the way the Dutch socio-political system has evolved over centuries to support the collective effort to keep Dutch feet dry from ever-present water.
The third walk is from Hoek van Holland to Delft, and it follows on from the above but starts talking about agriculture. It introduces the Honger Winter of starvation at the end of the Second World War, the intensification of Dutch agriculture (I walk across Westland, which is the glasshouse-strewn centre of the Dutch agro-industrial complex), the environmental impact (including the nitrogen crisis that has led to the farmer protests), and finally the systematic risks run by the Netherlands, given how intensively it uses its small land area.
Each chapter builds up bit by bit, and I hope whoever reads the book or sees the videos gets a good picture of why the Netherlands is quite so extraordinary - and why it faces pretty serious questions about the future…
As well as the four videos per walk, I’ve a few extras to throw in: I visited a tech-heavy dairy farm near s’-Hertogenbosch, and also filmed an interview that I did with the venerable journalist and historian Geert Mak. I’ll throw those in at some point.
The videos were a fun thing to do while walking, and it’s been enjoyable rediscovering my filming and editing skills. It was more of a question of ‘why not?’ than hoping to join the glorious ranks of YouTube influencers. But if you happen to buy the book and enjoy it, then have a look at some of the videos. If you don’t buy the book, again, take a look at some of the videos! And remember that everything is collected together on my website: www.tenwalksexplain.com (also rediscovered: how to build a website).
Anyway, it’s all up and running, and the book is out in a month. Phew. Hello World and all that. I hope some of you enjoy it. Thanks for reading.
(All maps courtesy of https://www.milesmap.co.uk/)